NASCAR will not limit Victory Lane celebrations after Connor Zilisch’s fall

After winning Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race at Watkins Glen, Connor Zilisch climbed from the car to celebrate, as he had done in his previous five wins this year. However, this time, he slipped off the car and fell onto the ground in a frightening moment. He suffered a broken collarbone in the fall, but there were no other reported injuries.

As he recovers, there have been rumors swirling that NASCAR is going to change its Victory Lane policy or even ban drivers from standing on top of the car. But in the sanctioning body’s weekly podcast, Hauler Talk, NASCAR’s managing director of communications, Mike Forde, said that there are no such plans to limit the celebrations.

“We haven’t said that we were going to tell drivers who have won not to step out onto their window, and stand there and take photos and all that,” explained Forde. “Right now, there are no best practices. We aren’t legislating it. We haven’t said that drivers aren’t allowed to do this or anything else. However, I think we did notice the window net … we do have NASCAR employees in Victory Lane, and just make the window net is inside of the car.

“I think that was part of the problem — the window net was flapping on the outside. I think Connor even said that may have been a problem, and one of our safety guys actually mentioned the same thing. He noticed that as being one of the issues. So, nothing as far as a policy goes. Make sure the window and check, (because) if that’s inside the car, it’s one less thing you can slip on.”